I'll Show You the Way
by dreams of infinities
Summary: She doesn't remember how she got there. All she knows is this: she's here, and he's here, and she hurts, and he's nursing her. And that she's in his bed but she can't move and here, in front of her, is her worst enemy, and he wants her to forgive him ... and she wants to forgive him. Post Season 2 finale.
1. i'm awake (but the nightmare isn't over)

**A/N: This is one of those random fics that pops into head and doesn't stop nagging until you write it down, so I'm not quite sure I should be continuing (especially since I kind of banned myself from writing anything else until I clear up some of my other unfinished stories). I will need a few reviews to let me know, even if it is just constructive criticism.**

 **This takes place after the season finale, and so contains a few major references, but nothing too bad or spoiler-y. However, you might understand a little better if you have watched it.**

 **Please enjoy and review!**

Her head hurt. It felt like it had been split in two and indeed, when she put a hand to the back of it, it came away sticky with the blood just barely soaking through the thin dressing protecting the wound. Her hair was tangled and matted around the cut. She wondered how she had managed to get there but it hurt so much that she eventually gave up and let her mind wander.

Was she with Lincoln? No. Wherever he was, she thought, the room would be light and airy and pleasant to lie in, and the bed soft. This room was small and windowless and dingy. The walls were a nasty shade of beige - almost as if they had once been white but were now old and dirty and shabby. The bed was not undesirable (she could hardly imagine herself anywhere else), but not wonderfully clean and soft and fresh, either. The blanket on top of her was mildly scratchy and the single pillow did not elevate her head as much as she would have liked, but it was satisfactory enough that she would make do.

She opened her mouth to call out, but at that precise moment a jet of pain burst through her skull and she closed it again, an undecipherable, garbled mumbling coming out of her mouth instead. She closed her eyes, trying to banish the pounding in her head, the heaviness of the rest of her tired body. What had happened...? Why was she here? Where was Coulson - and Fitz and May and Simmons, who would be able to help her, and everyone else she cared about?

Was she in some unlived in section of the Playground? But why would she be there, and not in the lab or her bunk?

Her eyes flicked around dully, until she found the door, which promptly opened, and then shut again, to heavy to open. Footsteps moved closer to her bed, and she tried not to fall asleep (which was, truth be told, not easy at all), because she wanted to see who her mysterious captor was. He - she assumed it was a he, from the size and calloused feeling of his hands - stroked a lock of hair off her face, for which she was oddly grateful, and then gently slid his arm under her shoulders and sat her up.

She could hear his even breathing, could smell his clean smell - he had, it seemed, had a shower - as he unwrapped the bandage around her forehead, probably changed the dressing, and then replaced it, slightly tighter than before. She sensed that this was not intentional; a mere small change, easily overlooked were one not concentrating with all their might on it. She couldn't fall asleep.

He then slowly rested her head on the pillow again, which sent a knife of pain through the back of her head. His touch was overwhelmingly soft, as though he cared as much about not hurting her as she herself did. She drew in a deep breath.

And opened her eyes.

Then she closed them again. "Coulson?" she asked uncertainly. She heard his knee click as he crouched down beside her.

"Not Coulson," he said, quiet and calm.

She stopped drawing in deep breaths and started drawing in shallow ones, panic controlling her aching mind, freezing her body, quickening her breathing, because _this couldn't be happening_ , he couldn't be here. He was _here_ , _in front_ of her, looking after her, _nursing_ her, and _what the hell was he doing? What the hell was she doing?_ This _couldn't_ be right. _No._

He laid a steady hand on her shoulder. "It's OK," he said, as though this were _natural_. "Take deep breaths."

Her breathing didn't slow, but she opened her eyes, her head numbed momentarily. The light was almost blinding, though it was, admittedly, very dim. But it was true. It was him, right in front of her.

She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out. "No," she whispered instead, trying to shrink back, but she was so _damn heavy_...

Ward.

Grant Ward.

He opened his mouth and she knew what he was going to say, already, before he started to say it, because she had heard those familiar words so many times before: on the 'bus, on the phone, through her communications line, everywhere, but he said it all the same, a slight smile playing at his lips.

"Hello, Skye."


	2. you're here (and you're not going away)

**A/N: OK. I admit. I kind of like this story now I've seen the response the first chapter got.**

 **There are a couple of mentions of Simmons in this chapter, but to be completely honest I don't think she'll be playing a massive part in this story because I have NO IDEA what happened to her at the end of the Finale (but boy, did it depress me).**

 **Also, these chapters are all quite short. I don't know if that will change later on or not, so please bear with me while I get these things sorted out.**

 **And last of all, your reviews mean the world to me. Is there a character you'd like to see, or something you'd like to happen, or something you do/don't like? Please let me know, even if you're just following or favouriting or something...**

"Sir, Skye should be back by now."

"I know," Coulson said absently. "I've been searching for her for the last two hours."

Fitz stopped moving, abruptly. "Sir? Why did you let me sleep?" He felt a pang of worry tug at his gut, though this was becoming more and more of a normal occurrence for him since Jemma disappeared.

"Because you were exhausted, and you're no use when you're half asleep. Come over here." Fitz obliged. "She went offline just before the explosion, saying the earpiece was hurting her ear. I know that's true because she was complaining about it in Bordeaux. But there was a tracking chip in there which should have told us where she was. Immediately after we blew the building, she stopped, and about half an hour after that the tracker died too."

"OK," he said slowly. "That's, um, that's...?"

"Difficult? Confusing?"

"Strange. These new earpieces were made so that it would take maybe even a few gunshots to break inside. They can withstand high and low temperatures, and so pretty much the only way to kill them is to hack them, or get inside."

"What does that mean? Could Skye have done this?"

Fitz thought for a moment. "It's highly -"

"Unlikely?"

He shook his head, frustrated. He couldn't get the words out today. The data was all jumbled up in his brain. " _Probable._ That she spent the half hour she was stationary hacking it."

"That doesn't sound like Skye," Coulson frowned.

"No," he agreed. "It doesn't. The other option is that she was struck by flying debris from the blast, or something, was knocked out, and someone else found her."

"But nobody knows about the comms. You said yourself that they were a new design."

"They were. We only made them a couple of months ago. Sir? Do you think it could be someone..." He trailed off meaningfully.

But Coulson didn't seem to hear that part. "Before or after Ward came to the base?"

"What?"

"Were they ready before Ward came to the playground?"

Fitz thought a moment. "Yes," he said slowly. "Me and Mack were working on them while Agent 33 was being tested."

He groaned, head in hands. "Ward, then," he muttered.

* * *

Skye felt a flood of terror fill her gut as Ward took her wrist.

"Easy," he said; her terror must have shown on her face. "Easy."

She tried to get away from him but her body was too heavy to move. She couldn't even use her powers on him, and this was worrying her.

"I gave you something for the pain, Skye." A head wound didn't require that much drugging, did it? "You've got a nasty burn across your upper back. Second degree, I think, and you sprained your wrist when you fell. Unfortunately the only stuff I had that was strong enough had was mixed with a weak paralytic. You should be able to move a little, but not much."

From Bobbi, Skye found herself thinking, from when he tortured Bobbi. She opened her mouth to try and speak. It hurt her head and the corners of her vision went blurry, but she managed one word. And one word was enough. " _Bobbi_ ," she slurred.

He flinched and dropped her wrist. She watched, transfixed, as it hit the mattress and bounced once before coming to a stop. Now she thought about it, that was dully aching as well, not badly, but noticeable enough. And she could feel the heat coming from her bandaged back, although the pain seemed somehow detached from it.

"This isn't what you think it is," he whispered. "I'm not going to hurt you, I swear."

She raised an eyebrow sceptically, but it made her dizzy and a little nauseous. Black tugged at her vision again, and she felt her eyelids flutter. Beads of sweat trickled down her forehead. Her breathing was as quick as was possible with the paralytic taking its toll.

Her eyelids fluttered.

"Go to sleep, Skye," he breathed. "We can talk when you wake up."

She didn't want to sleep. She didn't want to do anything he told her to do. Her eyes remained open.

He laughed quietly and left the room, but even as her eyes slid shut she didn't miss the telltale _click_ that was him locking the door.

Even as her eyes slid shut she didn't miss the empty syringe labelled _SEDATIVE_ on the table by her bed.


	3. trust me (i'm better than you think)

**A/N: Back again! Wow! I've hit Chapter Three! Your response has been incredible so far, people, and your reviews mean the world to me!**

 **Couldn't resist putting a bit of Bobbi in this chapter. The fic was meant to be SkyeWard-centric, but there were so many references to her in the end that I had to put something about her in.**

 **Please continue to review and follow and favourite! You are the best!**

"I swear, Skye! I won't hurt you! I just," he said quietly, "want to talk."

She struggled against him. "Is that what you told Bobbi, before you _tortured_ her? I'm not an _idiot_ , Ward. I know what you did, and I know it's _your fault_! If you're not going to hurt me, then you can _damn well let me go!_ "

"I never wanted to hurt Bobbi," he said. "But-"

"Oh, sure," she snapped. "Just quit the crap, Ward, OK? Once, I would have believed anything you said - hell, you were the only thing I believed in!"

"Just-"

"But times change, OK? You-" she slammed her fist, temporarily free, into his chest - "are a _murderer_! You are a _liar_ and a _traitor_ and no matter what they say, _people don't change._ "

He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. "Don't even say it! Don't say you didn't have a choice. Don't say it wasn't your fault. Don't spit out whatever random rubbish you're going to spit out, because I know you! And I hate y-"

" _Skye!_ "

She paused for breath, panting, and realised that her head was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to explode. She groaned and rested it against the pillow again tiredly. "What?" she croaked.

He looked at her for a moment, and she noticed with a slight jolt that he had most of his body pressed down on top of her, forcing her to be still. "I swear, I will explain all of that later-"

"-and I won't believe a word of it-"

"But for now, you're going to have to trust me, OK?"

She laughed mirthlessly. "I will never do that, as long as I live."

She saw pain flash across his eyes briefly, and then he spoke harshly. "That was always your problem, Skye. You always just _assume_ that you're right. That _nobody_ else might have something to say."

Then he walked out, leaving her chilled to the core.

* * *

When Bobbi woke up, she was drowsy and flying high on painkillers. She grunted softly, not altogether enjoying the now familiar sensation - it had long since lost its appeal since the Ward incident. Now, the idea of feeling nothing repulsed her, and whenever she turned her head she worried that their would be a needle in her arm. Paranoia was not, typically, a trait she harboured, and she was not afraid nor scarred in any mental way, but there was always that edgy feeling that came after a particularly difficult mission or outing...

She cleared her dry throat, noting with some surprise that Hunter was not sat beside her as he had been for every other operation she'd been through since getting back. Deciding against calling for him (he'd done so much), she absently put a hand to her chest to touch the wound - which was covered in a thick layer of gauze.

"Agent Morse?"

She turned her head towards the door, where a tall, gangly young scientist was stood. He had an odd twitch to him, and clutched his clipboard to his chest as though it was a life force.

"Yeah?" There was a heavy feeling in her chest, and it wasn't from the bullet wound.

"How are you feeling? The operation to your knee didn't go as well as we had hoped, with the loss of Agent Simmons, but-"

" _What?_ "

" _Oh, crap..._ You should be walking again, with assistance of course, in a couple of weeks. With a lot of physiotherapy, you'll be back to normal in about six weeks."

It took a great deal of restraint not to let her jaw fall open. Six weeks? But she had more pressing matters in her mind. "What was that about Simmons?"

He darted from the makeshift hospital.

Bobbi opened her mouth wide. " _Hunter!_ "

He came running. "Bob? You OK?"

Hunter's eyes widened when he saw the look on her face. "Sit down," she said forcefully. "We need to _talk_."

* * *

"OK, so...so-" Fitz banged his fist on the small metal table in frustration. They had no leads, no clues, _nothing_ to go by.

"Fitz." Coulson held up a hand to stop him. "I don't think Wards going to hurt Skye."

"Yeah, I kno- what?"

"Have you ever seen him hurt her? I mean, think about it. Sure, he betrayed her, kidnapped her a couple of times, but she's never come back seriously injured..." He bit his lip thoughtfully. "I think it's possible... Skye talked about how he liked her. Maybe he still does. Maybe he wants her for himself."

Fitz choked. "That's ridiculous. I mean- why? What the hell? That's...disgusting. He _wouldn't_ , right?"

"Not in _that way_ , Fitz," Coulson sighed. "I meant that maybe he doesn't want to hurt her at all. Maybe he wants to get her on his side."

"But Skye won't, will she? She hates him. She _shot_ him."

"I hope so," he said grimly. "I'd hate to be fighting against her."


	4. i'll find you (wherever you may be)

**A/N: I'm back! This update's quite late as I normally try and get one up each week, but at least there actually is one...**

 **More mentions of Simmons, I know, but it's kind of hard because FitzSimmons is pretty much my OTP and my heart was slightly shattered after the season finale. Hence this fic. But anyway, enjoy!**

 **And please review!**

Melinda May, Andrew always said, had a funny idea of the definition of the term "vacation".

Most people would think of white-sanded beaches and sun, or sweet little châlets in the Alps. Perhaps a few of total desertion, living for a week or so in the middle of a forest with a tent and a campfire.

May liked to wander.

She hired a small car, and had started touring; visiting every place she didn't know and some places she did, sniffing around for any signs of Hydra (

she did, it seemed, miss her line of work enough to be on her guard for any potential threats); checking up on and maintaining the safety and comfort of every SHIELD safehouse she knew of - and, having a knack for discovering Fury's top secret ones, several she was not even aware existed.

Her days were filled with pleasant car journeys and brief exchanges with the locals, and every week Andrew phoned to check that everything was going OK and she hadn't been "kidnapped or something". Therefore, it was much to her surprise that, upon answering her phone on Thursday evening, it was not Andrew's deep, rich voice that greeted her.

"May," said Coulson.

"Coulson," she replied evenly, forcing the surprise out of her voice.

"I just wanted to check that you were OK."

"Why wouldn't I be?"

There was a long, hesitant silence down the phone line. "... Stuff's happening," he told her eventually.

"Is everything all right?" She was definitely uncertain now.

"We're working on it," Coulson assured her quietly.

"I'm coming back in. I'll call you in two minutes. Tell me everything."

She scraped everything she had into her small suitcase, grabbed it, and headed for her car. Then she called him back.

"Is it Ward? Has he come back?" she asked, before he even had time to say hello.

There was a sigh. "We think so."

May swore. "Has he...?"

Coulson didn't answer.

" _Crap_ ," she said. "Who?"

"It's... Skye."

Panic churned at her gut. Skye... She was still damaged by the fight with her mother, and shaken by Cal's taking through the TAHITI project.

Ward had taken her at her most vulnerable point.

"I'm on my way."

* * *

When Skye woke up, she felt much better. Her head injury was pretty much healed, and so she felt light and airy.

Her back hardly hurt at all. She suspected she had been kept sedated for about a week, and while drifting in and out she had noticed Ward applying some sort of cold gel to her burns.

She slid her feet out from under the covers and stood up, feeling a little wobbly at first but soon regaining her footing. She was dressed in a loose top that proclaimed "I LOVE THOR" and some baggy sleep shorts - presumably something that Ward had picked out for her. Yawning, she tried the door, and was not unsurprised to find it unlocked.

Skye wandered into the hallway and came face-to-face with him. Gasping, she stumbled backward, he put a firm hand on her shoulder and led her back into the room.

 _Cell, I should say,_ she thought grimly.

"How are you feeling?" he asked her.

"Like crap," she retorted, and he smiled.

"Do you need anything?"

"A shower." This, indeed, was true, there was still blood matted in her hair and general dirt clung to her skin.

"Oh," he said apologetically. "We don't have running water here. But... I guess there's the waterfall."

"We?"

"Me and you, Skye," he murmured, and he said it with such honesty that she didn't doubt it for a second.

"Why don't you let me go?" she asked. "If you care about me so much."

He avoided the subject. "I'll take you to the waterfall. You can wash there."

* * *

Coulson walked into the lab, where he found Fitz typing furiously. "How's it going?"

He stopped typing and gestured towards an empty seat. "Sir," he said quietly. "We have to face several possibilities."

Coulson sat down.

"Skye wasn't far enough away from the blast when it happened. The heat would have given her at least a second degree burn and there was so much debris flying from the explosion that she could easily have been hit."

"Or crushed," Coulson whispered.

"Or crushed. We have no evidence to support the fact that it was Ward who took Skye, or if anyone took her at all, and even if he did, she shot him four times and he isn't likely to forgive that."

"Damn it, Fitz!" Coulson slammed his fist on the table and the young engineer jumped back in surprise. "Skye isn't dead!"

"And look what he did to Bobbi! For all we know, when we found Agent 33's body it could have been him who killed her when he discovered that things weren't going to plan!"

" _Fitz!_ "

They stared at each other, both breathing heavily. "All I'm saying," Fitz finished softly, "is that we might have to prepare ourselves for what we find."

His chair scraped against the metal floor as he stood up. Coulson looked at the floor. Footsteps echoed across the room.

"Fitz," he said quietly.

The footsteps stopped.

"You sound like Jemma."

"I know," Fitz said. "I know."

Then Coulson broke down.


	5. can't run (there's nowhere left to go)

**A/N: I'm baaaaaaaaack! I'm happy to announce that I've now managed to plan some of the major plot points of this fic. That didn't take long.** **However, I have a slight problem in that I have no clue as to what else to put in. If you have any ideas, please leave a review or pm me or something.**

 **This chapter is random and probably insignificant in the grand scheme of things. But hey, please enjoy it!**

 **And REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW!**

The water was _freezing_. Ward had wordlessly passed her a bag containing a towel, hairbrush, toothbrush, and some soap.

"Any spare clothes?" she'd grumbled quietly. He smiled a little, taking in for the first time her rugged appearance.

"You can borrow a shirt and some jeans if you like," he shrugged. "They'll be warmer, but quite big."

She sighed. "Fine."

When fully equipped, she walked behind a rock and ducked under the spray. It was icy cold and she very nearly screamed at the harsh suddenness of it, but bit down on her lip and scrubbed herself.

She stayed under for a full five minutes before the cold got too much and she grabbed for the towel, shivering. Thankfully, it was large and soft and thick, and enveloped her completely. There was a pile of Ward's clothing on the other side of the rock (far too large, as predicted), which she begrudgingly put on.

Then, feeling cleaner, she brushed her hair.

The thought struck her after she spread the damp towel across the large boulder she had been washing behind. Ward wasn't there.

Pulling on a pair of shoes, Skye looked around for a few seconds, and began to run.

It seemed she was in the middle of some sort of forest; dense undergrowth stretched as far as she could see (admittedly not very far) and she suddenly understood why Ward's hideout was built underground. These trees looked bright and green, but also gnarled and ancient, and as strong and sturdy as rock.

The shoes Ward had supplied her with were cheap canvas pumps, and were soon soaked through. Mud squelched beneath them - she was sticking close to the river, because _there was always civilisation somewhere near a river, right?_ Sheheard shouting a way off.

"Crap," she found herself saying, picking up speed. "He's on to me!"

Anything in her way, she either charged straight through or used her suddenly resurfacing powers to blast out of the way. She was making good progress, but she could sense that Ward was gaining on her and this was hardly helped along by her all-too-distinguishable trail. Of course, she considered jumping into the river, but that would only make her colder and wetter and he would guess immediately that she had.

After about half an hour of solid running, Skye slowed to a jog, then a walk. Then she stopped altogether. Ward had long since disappeared, perhaps taking a wrong turning or something. Figuring she should perhaps move to a place less obvious that right beside the river, she moved away from it at a perpendicular angle until she was a good two hundred metres away and then sank to the floor, exhausted.

It took her a couple of minutes to get her breath back, but when she did, Ward was waiting for her.

"Crap," she said.

* * *

May burst in through the doors of the Playground and headed to the lab, where she presumed Fitz and Simmons to be searching for Skye.

To tell the truth, she was terrified for the young agent. She knew that Skye had her own back. She knew that Skye hated Ward, and no matter how compromising her situation was, she would never join forces with him. She knew that at the first chance she got, she would try and put a bullet in his head.

But Skye would always be her rookie.

Coulson was in the lab, engaged in a fierce argument with Bobbi - in a wheelchair, May noted - while Hunter stood behind her looking uncertain of what to do. It was him who glanced up to see her first. "My day just got ten times worse," he muttered quietly. "Coulson!"

"What?!"

Hunter nodded towards the doorway where she stood. "Where's Simmons?" she asked stoically.

Everyone looked at someone else. Coulson swallowed. "Why don't you sit down," he said quietly. "You've got a little bit of catching up to do."

May sat down.

* * *

She didn't know what she expected. Anger, probably. Irritation. Not this.

"Come on, Skye," he said calmly, and lifted her up in his arms. It was a terrifying sensation; she couldn't move, couldn't speak. Her body was heavy and lifeless. His hand shifted slightly beneath her.

Skye groaned. She wanted to struggle, to fight, to do _something_...but she couldn't. She _couldn't_.

"Wh... Wha..." Her tongue was thick and heavy, her lips unable to form the words properly.

"It's all right, Skye," he whispered. She could hear the strain of her weight in his voice, but he didn't put her down. "I just didn't want you fighting me, is all."

She blinked.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm so sorry."

Blink. Blink.

"But I need you to hear my side of the story before I let you go."

He carried her all the way back to her - _his_ \- bed.


	6. panic (you've come a long way)

**A/N: I think quite a few of you have been waiting for this chapter, as it begins to explain things, Ward-style (e.g. not very well at all). Also, it focuses entirely on Skye, and not Coulson or anyone else at SHIELD.**

 **Also, a lot of you have been asking for longer chapters. I know how frustrating it is as a reader to have short chapters, but to be honest if the chapters were longer it would take more time to write them and I would struggle to get them up as much, if at all. Sorry!**

 **Sorry it took so long to update; there is a note on my profile saying that it's the summer holidays and I'm not around quite so much, so it might be a while until the next update too.**

 **Enjoy and review!**

When Skye woke, he was sleeping in the chair at the end of her bed. ( _His_ bed, she reminded herself sternly. She would never belong in it, and it would never belong to her.) She fought the urge to shudder - that couldn't be normal. Turning her head slightly, she noted that her hair was wet; and thus remembered what had happened.

Skye sat up with a gasp, ignoring the sudden rush of blood to her head that made the world tilt slightly. This, it seemed, was enough to wake Ward, who slowly opened his eyes and turned around to look at her. "You _drugged_ me!" she hissed furiously. "You picked me up and then you stuck a _needle_ into me so I wouldn't run away again!"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry. But please - " he gently pushed her back down - "just hear me out."

"I don't know what there is you want me to listen to! I think you've made your motives _pretty clear_ already."

"I was abused as a child," he told her, ignoring this. "Me and my brother and our older sister - though her not as much, and our younger brother Thomas not at all. But Christian - the oldest brother - he turned...bad. He turned on us, beat us up, and I learned to protect Thomas that way. And Ella protected me, or tried to anyway."

"Tried to?"

"I think, because she was a girl, our parents didn't want to harm her as much as they did us. So Christian went out of his way to make it clear to her that it didn't matter to him. One time I had to call 911 - he put her in hospital. And Thomas... Our parents doted on him. He was the favourite, and all three of us resented him for that."

"And Christian made you...?"

"Yeah," he said, his voice no louder than a whisper now. "And the Ella dropped out of high school at sixteen and ran away from home, so my parents disowned her. And we never heard anything from her again, except that the body of an unidentified girl in her late teens was pulled from a nearby lake. The police said it looked like a suicide."

"Was it her?"

"I don't know. I was arrested before I could find out."

Skye took a deep breath. "Look. That's crap, and nobody deserves that kind of childhood. I get why that would screw you up. But it still doesn't explain anything."

"The way I see it," he muttered, "it explains everything."

"So why did you torture my friend? _Kill_ yours?"

He flinched and stood up so suddenly that she jumped. "Who told you I killed her?" he demanded angrily.

"We found her body with three bullets in her abdomen. They weren't SHIELD bullets and you were long gone. Who else would have done it? Most of our agents were unconscious, injured or dead." At this final sentence she glared at him fiercely.

"I didn't mean to shoot her." His voice broke slightly, harsh and dry with sadness. "She came round the corner and with the mask, I thought she was someone els-"

"So you thought she was _May_? Is that it? You thought she was May so you shot her, all the while claiming that you never wanted to hurt me? Do you have any idea how many times May has saved my ass? Any idea how much she means to me?"

He closed his eyes. "Skye, May wasn't going to rest until she killed me. Have you never looked into the eyes of someone and made a choice that you know is going to hurt?"

"No," she said, with a frown, but deep down she knew that this was a lie. "And that doesn't make it _right_."

"It doesn't," he agreed, and they lapsed into a tense silence.

"What about Bobbi?" she asked finally. "Can you think up some crappy explanation for what you did to her? And why you betrayed us to Hydra? Why you pretended to be in love with me just so you could use me?"

"I was Hydra because John Garret told me to be."

"Sure. And that's a great reason. If John Garret told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?"

"Yes," Ward said quietly.

"Wow." Skye whistled. "You need some serious counselling."

He nudged her playfully, but the once cheerful gesture - a lapse of concentration on his part - seemed forgotten and mildly threatening to the both of them. She shifted away.

"How long have I been here, Ward?" Skye murmured after a while.

Ward hesitated. "Three weeks."

She choked on the air she was breathing. Three weeks. Three weeks. Hell, how long had she been awake for it? What had he done to her to keep her under for so long? Coulson would think she was dead! All her friends, everyone...

They were searching, and when they found her, Ward would try to kill them all.

Everything spun-

He was there, helping her sit back down-

(When did she stand up?)

Putting her head between her knees-

She couldn't breathe-

 _Trust me trust me trust me-_

He wanted her to trust him-

She wanted to trust him-

 _No no no no no-_

He had a hand on her back-

 _Get off get off-_

Murmuring reassuring words in her ear-

 _Stay there stay there-_

"Ah," she gasped out, and it was over.


	7. it's time (for everything to change)

**A/N: I'm sorry it's been forever. I went on a two week holiday and my campsite wifi was rubbish. Maybe I'll get an update up on Monday (I'll probably be stress writing because school starts then).**

 **This is the longest chapter we've had so far, at... Well, I've forgotten how long it is, but it's definitely over a thousand words. Which is good. Maybe they'll start to get longer from here on out. Heh.**

 **Do I detect a tiny touch of SkyeWard in this chapter? Nah. Must just be a trick of the light.**

"So I was thinking." Fitz jumped; even in a wheelchair, Bobbi had an unnatural ability to enter a room silently.

"Look, Bobbi, now's really not the time. I'm trying to -"

"I was thinking," she interrupted, "about Ward. Where he might be."

He dropped the wiring he was working on and turned around. "Yeah?"

"He's smart. He's good at thinking up quick backup plans when something changes or goes wrong," she said.

"Yes," Fitz said impatiently. "I know."

"But he's also good at finding places to hide. Places where nobody would think to look. So I went ahead and searched for all the disused SHIELD bases in the country. And only _two_ of them have had the electricity on for the past three weeks."

"Two? Why two?" Fitz muttered to himself.

"My guess is that someone else is using them to hide from us. And," she added, "I think we should send in Strike teams to go and check them out."

He stood up. "We should tell Coulson."

"I already have," Bobbi said with a weak smile. "Let's see how _he_ likes being in a wheelchair for six weeks."

Fitz turned away, feeling somewhat embarrassed. He didn't like the way that Bobbi talked so openly about her experiences with Ward, as though it hadn't affected her mentally at all, as though he didn't leave her scars that could never be erased.

"Bobbi," he said suddenly. She was in the doorway, and turned round expectantly. "I - I just wanted to say th - that what you think you want might - might not be what you want."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

He hesitated, unsure of what he could say. "I... Ward left me with scars too," he blurted out. "And - and one day I couldn't stand it any more so I went - I went down there to try and do the same to him...and I couldn't. I couldn't do it."

Bobbi's face darkened. "Fitz, what Ward did to you is ten times worse than what he did to me. You're a different guy now. But he's got Skye now -"

"Skye's been gone three weeks!" Fitz exploded. "Three bloody weeks! Why hasn't he contacted us, to taunt or something? Why hasn't she escaped or found some way to contact us herself? What if he's torturing her, like you -" here Bobbi visibly stiffened - "or if he brainwashed her or something, or she's dead! What if he killed her?!"

"Fitz, I get that you're tired..." She trailed off uncertainly.

"No! Skye's been gone for three weeks and Jemma for four and I've barely been sleeping, I'm so worried about them, but I think maybe it's time to face the facts. Maybe they are dead, maybe they're gone and we're all working frantically for nothing."

Silence echoed through the air, loud and quiet and overwhelming. Bobbi turned and wheeled away.

"Go and see Coulson if you want to be on one of the teams," she said.

* * *

When she came to her senses, she was in Ward's arms, her face pressed against his chest. Her face was wet with tears.

She pulled away. "I - what?"

"You had a panic attack, Skye." His voice sounded calm and cool, as though this was normal behaviour for her. She hoped it would never be.

"A panic attack..." She was embarrassed, to say the least. That was such a _weak_ thing to do. She had never reacted to news like that before, not even when Coulson had told her Agent Lumley's story.

"Yeah. I'm sorry, Skye. I didn't realise you'd take it like that."

She took a deep breath, then said, "Why should I trust you?"

"You shouldn't," he murmured. "I'm a bad man, Skye. A really bad man."

"Why do I feel like I should trust you?" she added under her breath.

To this he replied, "I don't know," and she sank again into his uneasy yet somehow reassuring embrace.

After what felt like hours, Ward suddenly stiffened. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

She listened quietly for a couple of seconds, and sure enough, there was a muffled thump. He was stood up, holding a gun and running in a matter of moments, pausing only to tell her to stay put.

A thought struck her, and she froze. SHIELD. Could it be SHIELD? Could they have come to rescue her? Hope and relief washed over her, but there was something else too, something like...regret. Regret that she would never hear what he had to say.

What was she _thinking_? The guy was a _physchopath_. A _total_ physchopath who just _decided_ to _kidnap_ her and bring her to a random place in the middle of _nowhere_ so he could _talk_!

Footsteps.

She opened her mouth to call out. "I'm-"

Ward flew through the door and clamped a hand over her mouth. She started to struggle violently and another hand reached across her arms and stomach, pinning her to him.

"We go. Now," he hissed. Skye kicked him in the shins and he grunted. "Skye, it's not SHIELD. It's Hydra. They're here to kill me, and they'll experiment on you if they find you here."

She stopped struggling and he let go. "Follow me," he whispered, and started to jog through a maze of corridors. She followed, not unsurprised when he opened a door and pulled her outside, in front of the waterfall. He didn't stop there, however, dragging her towards the rocks and then underneath. The noise was deafening.

His lips formed words she could not hear and then pointed to a small alcove just above her head, and then to small notches in the slick, wet rock that she could use to climb up.

"If I'm not back here in ten minutes," he shouted above the roar of the water, "you run as far as you can in the direction of the river. About ten miles down, there's a path leading to a small hut. You can stay there."

"What about you?" she called, but he was already gone. With a sigh she couldn't hear she climbed up and curled up inside the alcove, soaked by the spray.

With a jolt she realised that she could run, now. That he would never need to know. Maybe there was a phone or a map or a computer maybe in that hut. Why else would he send her there? The possibility was so real that she almost jumped down and started to go. But she stayed.

She wanted to know what the end was.


	8. help me (my whole world is falling down)

**A/N: Hi. Sorry it's been a while. I've been really busy with school and stuff.**

 **So I'm British, and they haven't even DECIDED when they're going to show the third season in the UK yet. So please no spoilers in reviews, and I'll just continue like the third season hasn't happened yet, if that's OK.**

 **This chapter was going to be longer, but I don't have much time and so I thought I'd just get this lot up. Anyway, we're nowhere near the big finale yet. There's a long way to go :)**

 **Also, 100 follows! Shout out to Missy8409 for being number 100, and keep them coming! Follows are joy, favourites are love, and reviews are ... peace? I don't know. Enjoy and review!**

It had been ten minutes.

No, it hadn't.

It had been ten seconds.

It had been ten hours.

She didn't know how long it had been, but she knew that she had to do something, that she was soaked to the skin and shivering and desperate for Ward's face to appear suddenly in front of her, even though he was her enemy, and they wanted each other dead...

Well, she wanted him dead. Didn't she?

She could use her powers, couldn't she? It struck her that she hadn't been able to use them since she'd woken up here. She held out her hand towards the water, willing it to do something. The cascade of water slid sideways in an arc for a few seconds, then resumed its normal pattern.

Skye looked at her hands, shaking slightly with the effort, and then back at the water. You couldn't even tell she'd done something. Something had made her powers weaker ... Perhaps now that she'd learnt to control it, it had died down a little. That was good, right? She didn't have to worry about it so much.

She jumped out of the alcove less than nimbly and winced as the impact jarred her ankle, before hurrying out from under the flow of water. She looked down the path she had to take. Then she looked back at the small, squat building.

She had to run.

But Ward was in there.

And even though she hated him - _hated_ him - she wanted to hear his side of the story. She wanted to know why he was so desperate for her to be with him. She just had to know. Then she would escape.

She went in through the door, which was simple enough, but it took her a good few minutes to find the stairs, and she wasn't really sure she wanted to be caught just because she was stupid enough to shout for help.

Finally, she poked her head around a door and found several black-clad Hydra men sprawled unconscious or dead on the floor. Drawing in a sharp breath at the grotesque scene, Skye stepped inside and scanned the room.

"Ward!" she shouted, because there he was, leaning against the wall, with blood spreading across his side. There was a knife in his hip.

"Skye," he grunted, waving a blood slicked hand in her direction. "Tol' you t'run."

"Crap!" she whispered, and then said, "You've been stabbed!"

"'S a flesh wound," he said, "nothin' major."

"Nothing _major_?! Holy -"

"Skye."

She stopped. "Yeah?"

"C'n you help?" he frowned, pulling the knife out and pressing his hands the wound to stop the steady stream of blood seeping out of it.

She ran forwards, pressing her hands on top of his.

"S'cond door on th' right," he informed her, his knees buckling slightly.

"Wait, wait, wait," she said desperately, "you're OK. You're OK."

"I'm OK," he agreed, and fell forwards into her unready hands.

* * *

Fitz wasn't sure who had been more surprised, Coulson when two Avengers jumped out at him from nowhere or Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton who jumped out and started attacking their dead friend.

But here they were, in the flesh. They were laying low for a while after the events of Sokovia, and they came to this hideout, of all places.

It explained the electricity uses, at least.

"Hey," Coulson had said uneasily.

"You haven't even told them yet?" Hunter asked, clearly finding in this more hilarity than anyone else thought necessary.

The Black Widow shot him a glare that Fitz himself would have shrivelled up and died under, but later Hunter murmured to him with a grin, "Try being married to Bobbi. Then you'll experience death glares."

Hawkeye, apparently having heard this, turned to look at them with an easy grin. "I've seen men die on the spot when she's just looked at them." The woman in question slapped his arm and he added, "Though that was probably also the gun she had in her dress."

Fitz was at loss for what to do. This was clearly the wrong place, but how did an entire team just back out and say, "Sorry, wrong secret hideout, see you again soon"?

Coulson had gone to make drinks (vodka, the two had said in unison, and he'd nodded and gone into the kitchen) and Hunter was in deep trying to flirt with Agent Romanoff. The rest of the team was on the quinjet on the way back to the base.

He'd thought about asking for their autographs for Jemma, but then remembered with a jolt that she was gone ...

"So," Agent Barton said conversationally. "It's Fitz, right?"

He nodded, not as star-struck as he would have been before he was thrown into a box and suffered hypoxia from the lack of oxygen when he'd saved the life of a girl who'd recently been _eaten_. By a _rock_.

"Is it a girl?"

"What?"

"That's why you're so miserable, right?" the agent smirked. "There's this girl."

"Two, actually," he muttered.

"Ah," Barton said knowingly. "That. There's two you like? Or one who likes you but you like another?"

"Frankly," he snapped, "it's none of your business."

"Yes, but I placed a bet with Nat and I already owe her, like, sixty bucks," he said pleadingly.

"There's this girl who was my best friend and maybe something more but our friend who is actually an evil Hydra psychopath dropped us in a box in the middle of the ocean and when I tried to tell her how I felt she didn't feel the same way -"

"Mate, _breathe_ ," Hunter interrupted, having now tuned into the conversation. The rest of the team had gone back to the quinjet to make contact with the others, who had gone to the base in Indiana.

" - So I gave her the oxygen but she saved my life anyway except I got brain damage and then she left and then she came back, stuff happened, and then she got eaten by a rock," he said without breathing. "And then my other friend who's the other girl went on a mission and got kidnapped by the same psycho who chucked us in the ocean. That's why we're here."

Hawkeye blinked. "OK."

Coulson walked in with his phone ringing. He placed the tray of shot glasses on the table and answered.

"May. What? No sign of her ... Right. No. Good," he added savagely. "I hope he bleeds to death slowly. You scoured the whole place? No hidden doors, no - OK. Can you get them all on the jet and head back to us? _Six?!_ You had a team of eleven, May! OK. See you in a couple of hours."

Hunter and Fitz looked at him.

"Ward was there, but no Skye," he said briefly. "May got a knife in him but he knocked her out before she could go for the kill. Six dead. They're on their way."

"Six?" Hunter gave a low whistle. "That's a few."

"Yeah," said Coulson. "And Skye wasn't even there."


	9. i've helped you (now you help me)

**A/N: What's this? An update, so soon? What's happening to me?**

 **I felt kind of bad about leaving that last chapter, so I tried to do this quickly, but it might not be great ... Sorry if it's rushed or anything. Right now I'm watching the rugby, which is _brutal_ \- why would you want to do that to yourself? How do they not die? - so I'm a little bit distracted.**

 **Also, the characters - Skye in particular - might seem a bit OOC. Please bear in mind that this is kind of an intense situation for her, and she's a little panicked, so she might not be herself.**

 **Not many reviews for last chapter ... I need reviews if I'm going to keep going, and the less reviews I get the less I want to. Please review! It means the world to me!**

By draping his arm across her shoulder and then half-dragging him into the first-aid room, Skye managed to get Ward onto a table and slap him until he woke up slightly.

"Sk - "

"Oh my God," she said. "I should just let you die. Why aren't I leaving you? You deserve to die. You're a murderer. Oh my God. I should just leg you die."

"You should just let me die," he echoed.

She took a deep breath. "OK. OK. What do I do?" Her hands were shaking so badly that she couldn't keep her arms still, and they fluttered across the surface of the wound in a frenzied panic.

"See that syringe over there?" Ward gestured towards the table next to him. "That's local anaesthetic. You need to - "

She grabbed it, stuck it into his stomach and pushed it in. He cried out in pain. Perspiration dropped down his forehead. "Not ... like that," he groaned.

"Crap! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! What should I do now?" She was hysterical, close to tears. "I should just let you die! I should finish you off myself! What the hell's happening to me?"

"It's fine. It's fine. Now," he said calmly, "you need to stitch me up."

Skye instinctively backed away. "W - what? I don't ... Can't you do it yourself?"

He raised an eyebrow.

"Crap! I hate Hydra! I hate you! Why am I doing this?"

She stormed out of the door. He didn't call after her.

A moment later, she reappeared. "Crap. I'm sorry. What do I do?"

"Open that box," he said.

Her hands were shaking so badly that she dropped the green plastic box. Its contents spewed all over the floor.

"Crap!"

"Skye, look at me," Ward said quietly. She forced her eyes to look at his bloody shirt. "Not at my stab wound. At _me_."

She looked into his eyes, pain flickering across them, and at the strong set of his jaw, his cheekbones, his lips - bizarrely spotted with blood.

"I'm going to talk you through this. It's going to be fine. OK?"

"OK," she said.

* * *

May dragged the last live agent onto the bus. She'd checked the entire base, and there was no sign of Skye. That was either very good or very very bad, and she wasn't one to believe in miracles. She thought back.

They'd fought. Somehow, he got hold of a gun and killed five of her men before the sixth sacrificed his own life wrestling it off him. They fought for a while, she grabbed a knife ... he punched her so hard in the face that she could feel herself slipping down even as he drew back his hand, so she randomly thrusted the knife forwards, felt it enter flesh, and went down. When she opened her eyes, he was gone, and having already searched, she occupied herself with getting the agents she could onto the quinjet and calling Coulson, getting the plane in the air as she did so.

No Skye.

Was she dead? Their beloved rookie, so indestructible, quietly killed at the hands of the man she once loved? It wasn't a good way to go.

One of the agents - Greene or something - groaned quietly. She didn't turn round, but sensed him taking in the scene of four people lying on the floor of the jet.

"Agent May?" he said. "I think I've broken my leg."

He was sweet, really; his face clean shaven and fresh, his voice so young and smooth he sounded almost like a teenager (he was, she remembered, only twenty-two). He wasn't bad company, either, he had a sense of humour and a serious air to him that she liked.

"There's aspirin in the first aid kit," she informed him.

He snorted. "Right."

"Check the others if you can," she continued. "If they're injured, try and make them comfortable."

"If they're not?"

She stayed silent. It wasn't a question that required answering.

* * *

He was dreaming. That much he knew.

Ward was holding Skye back while she struggled, pinning her to the wall by her neck. He could see that she needed help, and he kept trying to go and get him off her but he couldn't because he was up to his knees in quicksand.

"Fitz," she choked out. "Fitz, help me. Please help m - "

He lunged forwards, but Ward only laughed and drew a knife, and he was up to his waist now.

Then he realised that it wasn't Skye, it was Jemma - or maybe she had turned into Jemma while he wasn't looking, though that would be strange because he had always been looking.

"Fitz!" she cried. "Fitz, help! He's going to -"

Suddenly, Ward buried the knife in her stomach. She went white and collapsed into him. He dropped her to the ground.

" _Jemma!_ "

He started shouting, yelling, _screaming_ for her, but she was just lying there in a heap, unmoving ...

Someone slapped him in the face. He sat bolt upright, sucking in deep, ragged breaths of oxygen, realising that he was screaming her name and needed to stop.

"You're sweating in my bed," said Agent Romanoff.

"I - what?"

"You were having a nightmare and you're sweating. Get out."

Bewildered, he got out of bed, remembering a few hours ago, when he'd asked to use one of the beds because there were only three and Coulson was in the third. Romanoff hadn't trusted Hunter in hers, so he'd ended up in there. Now he wished he'd just drunk coffee.

He met Coulson in the corridor. "Fitz," the Director said mildly. "Are you OK?"

"What? Oh, yeah. I'm OK," he lied, distracted. "Why wouldn't I be OK?"

"Well, we heard you screaming."

"Oh." He felt embarrassed. "Sorry."

"Fitz ..." He felt a hand on his arm. "You were screaming for Jemma."

"I'm fine," Fitz said again, feeling irritable now.

"You know that I'm here. It's been hard on us all, losing her, but if you ever need to talk ..."

"With all due respects, sir, what are you going to do?"

Fitz shoved past him and went into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. He fumbled around in some of the cupboards, his bad hand shaking more than it should.

"Coffee's in there," said Barton cheerfully from behind him. Fitz jumped and dropped the mug he was holding. "Damn. I liked that cup."

"Sorry," he said, not feeling sorry at all. He glanced down a pt the shards. The mug had been plain white. It was exactly the same as all the others.

"Or did you want tea? I hate the stuff myself, but there's some on the left."

He opened the pot and pulled out a teabag, helping himself to another cup and dropping it inside.

"Do you want my advice?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"You're not going to get anywhere if you don't let anyone help you go somewhere," Barton said softly. "I learned that the hard way."

"Sure you did." Fitz busied himself with pouring boiling water into the cup. There was no point in making a pot; nobody else would want any, what with Simmons -

"Sure, I did. It's hard, being an agent. You have to make sacrifices. But when things happen to your friends, you have to move on. If I died, I'd want Nat to move on."

"She's not - "

Barton held up a hand. "If she's still alive, she'll find her way back to you. If she isn't ... honour her memory. She was friends with this other girl too, right? Find - what's her name - Skye. That's what she would have wanted."

Fitz stared at him for a moment, then left the room, his tea left on the table, forgotten.

* * *

Skye sank to the floor, close to weeping with exhaustion and shock. "That might have been the single most traumatic experience of my life," she whispered.

Ward lay unconscious on the table.

"If you die now, I'll kill you," she sniffed.

"You do that."

She jumped up again. "You're awake!"

"Yeah." He slid his legs over the side of the table, apparently about to stand up.

"Whoa - what are you doing?!"

"I'm on a table. I want to change my clothes and I want to go to bed," he said with what might have been a grin. "There's a bucket over there. Fill it with water from the waterfall and then I can sponge myself down."

"Like you did with me?" she asked, rushing over to him and lifting his arm across her shoulders so she could support his weight.

He groaned.

"You're a lot heavier than you look," she commented.

"Thanks," he grunted.

When he was cleaner (he'd tasked her with the job of lightly sponging him down until the blood was all gone) in fresh clothes with dressings applied, she helped him into bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. He smiled at her.

"You can leave now."

"I'm scared you'll die in the night of internal bleeding," Skye admitted, though she added hastily, "Not that I'd mind. But I stitched you up and I don't want to have gone through that for nothing."

( _Why did I do that?_ she thought for the umpteenth time.)

"There're blankets and pillows in the closet," Ward said drowsily. "Make a bed if you're that freaked out."

To tell the truth, she was _that freaked out_ , and she figured that she wouldn't be able to find her own room anyway.

Skye shrugged and opened the door to the closet.


	10. friends (and not-so-friendly people)

**A/N: Sorry, this is quite a short chapter. I just wanted to get something up because I haven't updated in a while.**

 **I'm taking a sort of break from writing right now. I've got quite a bit of schoolwork to do and there's just so many sports events or whatever going on that I can't seem to find the time to write. Right now I'm in bed half-asleep after a two-night swimming gala.**

 **Also, has anyone read the Black Widow book yet? I'm about halfway through and am not quite sure what to make of it ... to me it just seems almost like an OC Avengers FanFiction. But then, I spend a lot of time on here, so it's not really surprising. Let me know.**

 **So it might be a while until the next update - but please bear with me, because I'm certainly not finished with this story yet. And hey! There's a 1000 word update for you right here! Right now!**

 **Please review!**

"Skye. _Skye._ "

She groaned. "What?"

"I need your help."

"I'm sleeping," she mumbled.

"So was I, until I ruptured my stitches."

Skye shot up. " _What?_ Are you kidding? You'd _better_ be kidding. There is _no way_ I'm going through that again!"

"I'm kidding," he said. "But it does need cleaning. And we both need to eat, which means I need to get up so I can cook."

"I can cook," Skye said indignantly. He raised an eyebrow. "Well, I can sort of cook. I lived by myself for - "

"You can cook instant meals in a microwave," he interrupted. "And I don't have any instant meals, so go and fill up the bucket. And bring the dressings, bandages and iodine."

"Iodine?" she asked incredulously. "Nobody uses iodine any more! We use antiseptic and stuff!"

"Or we did, until you used it all up yesterday by dropping it on the floor."

"Cr -"

"If you say that one more time after yesterday," he threatened, only half smiling, "I will open the wound myself and bleed to death."

"Damn," Skye said instead. "I'll go and find the iodine."

She found it. It was near a bag of more gauze dressings and bandages, which she grabbed too, and tried not to look at the bloodstained floor. How could one human being produce that much blood? She shuddered.

When she got back, Ward was sat there without a shirt on, trying to undo the bandages. She walked in and slapped his arm. "Stop it! You'll open it up again!"

"Relax," he said. "I know how not to rupture stitches."

She choked. " _Excuse_ me?! Pretty much all of my memories of the 'bus begin with Simmons telling you - "

She stopped. They were both quiet for a moment, thinking.

"I haven't thought of that in a while," Ward said.

"Simmons? Or the 'bus?"

"Why would I be thinking about Simmons?" he asked, and Skye turned away, trying to blink back tears.

"Simmons - " she croaked, "Simmons ... she ... "

She started to leave, but Ward grabbed hold of her arm. "She didn't make it?"

Skye ripped the bandages off with more violence than was necessary. "That's the thing," she said bitterly. "We don't even _know_. There wasn't a body, any trace of her, any clue that she was dead - but there wasn't anything that proved that she was alive, either. She just ... disappeared. We have footage - "

She realised that she really was crying, now - tears pouring down her cheeks. She sat down on the bed next to Ward. "Hydra?" he murmured, so quietly that she barely heard.

"No," she said. "No. She was swallowed by an alien rock, and we never saw her again. It's been, what, four weeks now? Maybe more - I lose track of time here."

"I'm sorry," Ward said. "Sim - Jemma was a good woman."

His grip on her arm tightened considerably as she began to apply the iodine.

* * *

Coulson was there to meet her when she landed.

"May," he said, by way of greeting. "Are you injured?"

He was looking at the tremendous bruising blossoming across her eye, she could tell. Was she injured? Yes, and it hurt like hell. She could barely bend and straighten her knee, but she was doing a good job of hiding the limp.

"No," she said. "I'm fine."

She made her way towards the base entrance. "I take it the others are in the jet?" Coulson called after her.

"Most of them can't walk," she replied briskly.

She heard an "oh" behind her but didn't bother to turn around.

May walked into the safehouse (it was an ugly building - small and squat and made of concrete, just like Ward's) lost in thought. Skye ... couldn't be dead. It just didn't add up. But where else would she be? If she'd escaped, she would have called by now, but she hadn't called. She was ninety-nine percent sure that there were no secret passageways; it wasn't SHIELD'S style. Well, perhaps a little, but the place was so secret anyway that there would be no need to have one, and she'd never experienced one. So she wasn't inside the house.

Perhaps Ward had passed her on to the highest bidder - sold her off to someone who wanted intel.? That would be brutal, even for Ward - like a _slave trade_ \- but anything was possible, and she wouldn't necessarily put it past him. But to Skye? He always claimed that he loved her, and despite the fact that he was a lying, traitorous bastard, nobody really doubted that. The man was _obsessed_ with her, wouldn't talk to anyone _but_ her.

Did that make him want to dispose of her? Did he think she was a weakness?

She pushed open another door, not really knowing where she was going, and was met with a fierce head of red hair and a unsurprised-looking face.

"Well, hey," said the face. "It's the famous Cavalry."

She knew, she damn well knew not to call her that. Coulson was her handler, for goodness' sake. "Oh, look," May snapped back, "it's the _infamous_ Black Widow. Now there's a surprise."

"May?" Hunter's voice rang out from behind Romanoff. At a glare from May she stepped out of the way. Hunter stood up from what appeared to be a beanbag. "Bloody hell. At last. I've been going insane."

"What, no sex in over a week?" May replied coolly. "You astound me."

Hunter didn't react, instead just saying, "What's got _her_ all upset?"

A Scottish voice called from the kitchen. "What do you think?"

Fitz appeared with a steaming mug of coffee - no, tea, Fitz still drank tea - in his hands. "May," he acknowledged. "Good to see you."

"Well, isn't this nice," said someone else, and it was Hawkeye.

May turned back and started walking the way she came.


	11. time's passed (but nothing's the same)

**A/N: Hey. Look. I've emerged from the wilderness.**

 **Well, not really. But I've finally worked out how to get to the next massive event, which will happen in the next chapter or the one after, and you're going to hate me even more because, knowing me, I'll probably just end up publishing it and then waiting nearly two months to publish the next one. Yay.**

 **Basically, because it's been such a long time, this chapter takes place just over a month after the previous one. We've missed some pretty big events that I didn't know how to write about, so please don't judge me (actually, I probably deserve judgement. I'm terrible to you all). I have Writer's Block on practically all my stories and it hurts.**

 **Also, this ties in with some Season 3 events, namely the fact that Simmons is back. I know I said I wouldn't write much about her, but between Instagram, FanFiction and YouTube I basically know what happens to her anyway. So she comes back a little early, which was pretty risky to do because I haven't even _watched_ Season 3 yet (first episode comes out tomorrow, I'm so excited) but if you're worried about spoilers then don't worry. I don't know anything either.**

 **If you're _really_ worried about spoilers and don't even want to her Jemma's name, PM me and I'll send you a brief summary of the chapter without spoilers (I'll just say that she's back) but honestly there is only, like, two things mentioned that could be considered spoiler-y and they're such big things that you probably know about them already.**

 **Anyway, it might be a while until the next update. Like I said a month and a half ago, I'm really busy.**

Surprising though it seemed to her at the time, the next few weeks of Skye's life were happy ones. She still worried about the team and what was going on without her, but over time Ward assured her that they could look after themselves and that there was no need to worry.

It was like being caught in a time paradox; with every day that went by she felt safer and more comfortable and less worried about everything else. Ward healed and went back to his brutal fitness regime, only this time around, when he trained her, Skye found that she could (to a certain extent) keep up with him. She got fitter and better, and felt more peaceful than she had in months. There was nothing to worry about here. No running water, no internet, crappy electricity that cut out almost every day, but in a way that was nice.

Eventually, she stopped thinking about escaping, too.

Of course, sometimes she still considered trying to get a message out to the team, just to say that she was fine and that they didn't have to keep looking for her, but Ward had proved that there was nothing there she could use. Now, she was allowed all around the facility - he had explained that they were in an abandoned SHIELD base - and she knew for a fact that there was nothing here running on electricity apart from the lights, the fridge and the oven.

They got food from a supermarket twice a month - Ward put on a hoodie and a pair of sunglasses and then bought everything they needed with a gun in his back pocket. He thought it was too risky for her to go, which she didn't really believe, but didn't bother to argue about. If they had food, she figured, what was there to worry about? And although most of it was canned, they had some milk and eggs and fresh food just after the supply runs. They also grew fresh fruit and vegetables (well, he did) and they always bought toilet paper and soap and everything, so despite there not being a working toilet, sink or shower, they weren't exactly living like savages.

It was a pain having to purify water before they could drink it, however. She would never get used to the taste of those chemicals, but she would never forget them either.

Ward told her one day that, if she liked, it was probably somewhere around that time where she could call him Grant.

She laughed and told him to shut up.

"Skye, can you grab some water? I want to see if the instant milk powder works with cereal," he said.

"You're disgusting," she replied. "You sicken me. I'll never look you in the eye again."

Ward laughed. "Not a fan of instant milk?"

She retched.

"OK, I'll get the water myself. Do you want coffee?"

"Ward, even if we had some way to heat up the water, and coffee, I would never even go near instant milk powder. I may have grown up without parents, but, believe or not, I am not a total barbarian." She finished her speech with a pointed glare. "Also, the only cereal we have is cornflakes. You hate cornflakes."

Perhaps it was these arguments which drew them closer together, she mused. The ones where both knew tiny facts about the other, and used them against them, but not in a bad way. In a way that just made them ... happy.

* * *

Coulson sat at his desk and tried not to fall asleep. It had been a long day, but he still had a lot to do, and he didn't feel in the least bit like sleeping.

Two weeks ago, Natasha had sat down and bluntly asked him when he was going to leave.

"I don't mean to be rude," she said matter-of-factly, "but you can't stay here forever. You're not even _trying_ to find this agent.

"There's nothing we can do to try," he'd protested, but the team left the next day. Clint told him not to die again.

May came in. "What the hell's wrong with you today?" she asked. "Do you have any idea how much Simmons needs you right now? She's completely lost and you - and Fitz - are probably the only ones who can help her."

Simmons. Simmons, Simmons, Simmons. That was why he was so stressed, or at least part of it.

They'd found her, but she was different.

Quieter, flinching at loud noises, scared of sudden movements, clinging to Fitz like a lifeline and yet at the same time completely unable to bear his sympathy, his acceptance. She was scarred.

She didn't talk about what had happened to her, but they knew that she'd been on an alien planet, and that she had been there far too long. She didn't even believe that it was Fitz who was there rescuing her, she was so alone.

And today she'd started working in the lab again. Every movement, every time she said something, it seemed like the scientists were watching, waiting for something to happen. Eventually Coulson had had to ask Simmons to go and get something from the other side of the base and then shout at them all.

"Coulson! Are you even listening to me?"

He looked up, bemused. "Today is the two-month anniversary of Skye's disappearance."

May didn't give the reaction he was expecting. "Are you _kidding_? We get one dead agent back and you can't even be happy about it because you wish it was the other?!"

"May," he whispered, guilt freezing his insides like ice. "You know that isn't true."

She sat down opposite him. "You're right. I'm sorry."

It _wasn't_ true.

Well, it was a little true, but he wasn't wishing Simmons back there. He just wished that they could have Skye too.

"Phil? Can I ask you something?"

He nodded permission.

"Why did we never go back to Ward's base? Why did we never attack again?"

He looked up. "What?"

"We never went back. We never got Ward."

"I guess it never really crossed my mind, after all those men we lost."

"But think about it. We get a big team, a really big one, and corner him. He won't be able to get out."

"We'll lose people," he warned.

"Not as many as we will if he goes free."

"But," he said. May raised an eyebrow. "May, he's probably already left. Why would he stay when he knows that the place is compromised?"

She put her head in her hands. "I'm sorry. I didn't think."

"It's OK," he said gently. "We should at least check this place out. Maybe he left something behind."

"It's Ward," she said.

"Still."

He needed this. Needed some sort of closure.


	12. this is it (how it all goes down)

**A/N: Well, hi. Have I broken some sort of record for my fastest update ever? Probably.**

 **You won't be happy for long, however.**

 **I'm really not very happy with how I wrote this chapter, but I wanted to get it up before I forget how I've planned this out and I'll probably lose inspiration tomorrow or something so here we go. Constructive criticism is, as always, welcome, but no flames please. If I find the time I might edit this sometime.**

 **To bhut, in regards to your review, I laughed when I read it. I'm sorry. (I think I'm a psycho when it comes to this story).**

 **Only one other thing to say:**

 **Please don't hate me.**

 **Enjoy!**

Skye was under the waterfall with him. They were both still wearing the clothes they wore for physical training - they needed washing anyway, and this, as she pointed out every single day, was not the way to do it.

So they were both washing, fully dressed, and having some form of shouted conversation when he pushed her in.

And all of a sudden his face took on a mischievous grin and he stepped closer, planted a firm hand on her back (they had decided that the burns were healed last week) and shoved her into the cascade of water.

Skye screamed as she fell, but once she'd struggled into a spot where she could breathe again, she realised that she was directly behind the waterfall now, just in the river. The water came up to her chest. Once she'd got over the biting coldness of it, she took a moment to take in its beauty before coming to the more important subject at hand.

What the _hell_? Had he just tried to ...

There was a large splash which knocked her backwards into the water and sent her coughing and spluttering until her lungs were free of water. He hadn't tried to kill her, then. She banished the thought from her mind. They were _friends_.

Ward looked at her, grinning. "Son of a bitch!" she shrieked, splashing as much water as she could into his face. What kind of practical joke was that? She could have drowned for all he knew - how did he have any idea what might happen to her?

He splashed her back. "Sorry."

"You're not!" She started to churn up waves, she was splashing so hard. She started to laugh. "This is freezing!"

"Grow up, Skye," he said, laughing as well. "You'll liv - "

He was cut off by the large amount of water that fired into his mouth. She stopped splashing for a minute to watch his reaction, but he seized the opportunity to grab her and lift her into the air, and then straight under the waterfall. It wasn't as powerful as she'd expected, but she still struggled so much that he dropped her.

She came up for breath and found him staring at her.

He drew closer.

Then, with water up to her chest and a roaring waterfall ten inches from her head, she kissed him.

* * *

Suddenly, the water didn't feel so cold any more. It was hardly there, in fact. Nothing seemed to exist any more, apart from him and his lips and his hands stroking her hair.

He pulled away too soon. "I'm so sorry," he said. "You don't want this, do you, I betrayed you, I - "

"It's OK," Skye whispered, smiling gently. "I'm OK."

She brought her lips up to meet his again, and it was so cold that her teeth were chattering and she was afraid that she'd bite him but at the same time so hot that she could feel her cheeks burning. Everything felt wrong, but there was something so ... so familiar about it that she found herself unable to stop.

When he pulled away about a minute later (for air mainly) he took a look at her and announced that she needed to get dry before she caught hypothermia.

"I'm fine," she insisted, but he guided her to a set of footholds she hadn't seen and helped her get up out of the water. She grabbed a towel and started to dry herself, glad to find something normal to do. He joined her a moment later.

"Get inside," he said. She wasn't sure why he was so certain that she didn't want to be with him. She went inside and headed towards her room, where she changed into a dry set of clothes and combed out her hair.

He was waiting outside for her.

"Skye, I don't know why you - you - "

"Ward, I want this, OK? I want this to be happening and it's my choice and I've seen the way you've looked at me ever since I got here and I think it's time that we both accept the facts."

It was true. She'd always known that he still loved her, ever since she watched him nurse her back to health. "Which are?"

"That when a man and a woman live together they begin to develop feelings for each other."

"Skye, if you're scared of me, know that I'll never hurt y - "

"I'm not scared of you, Ward! I know that you don't want to believe this, but it's true! It's my life," she said gently. "My choice."

He shook his head slowly. "But that's just the thing," he said, voice breaking slightly. "I - I have something to tell you."

She gave him a questioning look, but he was prevented from going any further by a loud crash.

"That was the door," Skye said, eyes wide. "Someone's here."

"Gun," was all he said. She ran into her room and pulled out two pistols, tossing one to him. "Stay here," he told her, but she rolled her eyes and started sprinting down the corridor after him.

"Who is it?" she shouted. "SHIELD?"

"I don't know," he called over his shoulder.

Skye was confused. Why wasn't she relieved to see her team again? She was held here against her will, wasn't she? She'd been planning an escape strategy all this time. Why was she now suddenly confronted with an overwhelming fear that Ward would be taken away from her?

Sure, they were growing closer, but she was still imprisoned, right?

Right?

Skye wasn't so sure.

* * *

Natasha was not at all surprised when she got the call from Coulson. Rather, she was half expecting it. She had wondered when he would realise that they never went back with a better team.

"How do you know he isn't dead?" she asked. "May stabbed him, right?"

"Believe me, he's not dead," Coulson said. "Ward doesn't just die."

"OK," she muttered.

"How would you and Barton like to take down a bad guy again?" he asked.

Clint took the phone from her (he had incredible hearing) and said, "My dearest Phillip," he said smoothly, "there is nothing we'd like better."

She glared at him until he hung up. "What?" he protested. "I'm bored out of my mind."

"It's called laying low."

"And how long has it been since Ultron? Months and months."

"And how long has it been since you last got assaulted in a supermarket by a screaming fan?" she cut in harshly. "Hours and hours."

"Right," he said, snapping his fingers. "I'm going to clean my bow."

"You're taking a gun like a normal person," she called after him.

His rant went unheard - she plugged in some earphones.

* * *

"You - you know two of the Avengers," Simmons said faintly. "You stayed with them."

"Yes," Fitz repeated.

She took a deep breath. "OK. OK."

"Coulson said they'll probably come back to the base after the mission. You can meet them if you like."

She looked up. "Really?"

"Why not? You probably deserve it."

"I don't really think that being on an alien planet for two months really - "

"Jemma, nobody should have to go through that," he interjected. "Nobody. Least of all you."

"Fitz," she said, so quietly that no one else could hear it. "Fitz, someone's going to die. I can feel it."

"Jem - "

"Please don't let it be you," she whispered. "Please."

He pulled her in to a tight hug. "I'll try," he promised.

* * *

There was an army waiting for him.

Well, not necessarily an _army_ , May thought, but close enough. There was maybe thirty of them, half standing inside the facility, half just outside. There was no way Ward could get through them all.

Footsteps. The whole group was silent, waiting.

Ward charged into the room.

There was a moment of perfect, surreal, nothing.

Then Skye charged in after him.

She looked healthy. Muscular, tanned, clean, in clothes that looked new. There weren't any visible cuts or bruises.

She was also holding a gun and pointing it right at them.

"Hold your fire!" May found herself yelling, as the first few guns went off and Ward grabbed Skye's wrist, yanking her beneath a counter.

Shots came from the countertop. Men were falling all around her, blood spattering her face and clothes.

Everyone was firing. "Stop!" she shouted. "Stop!"

As the gunfire died down, some of the smoke cleared. She saw Ward, facing away from her. His gun was trained on Fitz, who was pressing his hands down on another man's wound, trying to slow the bleeding.

May pointed her gun at Ward's back and time slowed down.

Her finger hugged the trigger.

Skye stood up and looked around. There were tears in her eyes.

Her gaze fell on May.

She stepped to the side.

"Ward, no!" May heard Skye's cry. "Don't shoot!"

But it was too late for May.

Her finger was already squeezing the trigger, and her mind was screaming at her to stop, but she couldn't, she couldn't -

Skye was in front of Ward now -

A shot rang out, and it was from her gun -

May's gun -

And Ward spun around, but the blood was already there, already coming -

And it was coming from Skye's chest -


	13. drowning (where's the surface gone)

**A/N: Well, this chapter was bleak to write ...**

 **The story has changed directions from the way I'd originally planned, but don't worry, all the angsty stuff is still there plus a load more angsty stuff that nobody asked for. Heh.**

 **Also, I've only got a few more chapters left to write - two and an epilogue, I believe. You've all been so amazing far, so stay with me to the very end even though after the end of next chapter you'll hate me forever :)**

 **And without further ado, here's another chapter ...**

 **REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW!**

The gunfire ceased almost immediately. Most of the men knew Skye personally, or at least were acquainted with her; either that or they'd lost friends to Ward and had a personal vendetta against him.

There was complete, utter silence as Skye stood there, blood blossoming across her white shirt, before her knees buckled and she dropped into Ward's arms.

May stared.

He was crouched over her, speaking to her.

 _Drop the gun drop the gun drop the gun._

With an immense amount of willpower, May dropped the gun. It clattered to the floor.

She felt like she was drowning.

The smoke in the room was clearing and Skye and Ward were visible through it but she couldn't make her legs move and nobody else could either.

Fitz was the first.

He sprung up and ran over and started to shake Skye gently, pressing down on her chest even though his enemy's hands were already there, screaming for someone to help him get her to the quinjet.

The fog enveloping May's mind seemed to lift and she could hear Hunter saying, "Bloody hell. _Bloody hell._ "

Coulson, like her, was rooted to the spot, apparently in a state of shock.

 _Do something do something do something._

The voices in her head were louder than ever, telling her what to do, so she listened and obeyed.

She went over to Ward and yanked him away from Skye, pulling his hands behind his back and cuffing them together.

That was when she noticed something odd: the tear in his eyes and on his cheeks.

"Get up," she snarled, and he did so numbly.

"You fired the shot," he whispered, so tragically that she almost believed his compassion but for the fact that he was a lying bastard. "You fired the shot and it was meant for me."

The words were so damning she wanted to scream.

Ward was white as a sheet.

So was everyone else in the room.

* * *

It was the conflicting sides that were killing her, the knowledge that she was a part of both of them and that both had full faith in her and expected her to fight for them. She saw the shock in their eyes when she ran into the room, shock that she knew was mirrored in hers when they started firing. She saw the shock in Ward's eyes when he pulled her behind the counter and she refused to shoot at her friends.

When the room was half filled with smoke, he stood up. She saw him aiming at someone but her eyes were streaming from the smoke and the horror and the fear so she couldn't really see.

What she could see was May.

May, who she'd missed every single day.

May, stoic and solid and always _there_.

May, pointing a gun at the man Skye had kissed not half an hour ago.

"Ward, no!" she cried, not wanting him to die, not wanting her friend to be the one who'd killed him. "Don't shoot!"

Too late, she realised that May thought she was talking to Ward and not her. Helplessly, she stepped in front of him and prayed that May would get the message but there was a single gunshot that seemed louder than the others and she could tell it was coming from May's gun.

The gunshot echoed through the air but she didn't feel it pierce her chest, she saw it.

Everything seemed to stop as she tried to take a breath but couldn't.

Skye started to panic and found that there was blood in her mouth, trickling out of her mouth, dribbling down her chin.

Her legs started to give way and she let them, staring up at May for the last time. She looked ... afraid. Skye was a little surprised, if she was honest with herself.

Ward started to talk to her, pressing down on the wound, and _finally_ she felt the agony spread across her body.

"G-Grant," she choked out, remembering that he wanted her to address him by his first name. More blood came up and she coughed, but that spread more fire through her chest.

"Skye," he said, tears falling off his face and onto hers, sobs wracking his body. "Skye, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She tried to move her hand up to touch his but it was too heavy to move. She couldn't force herself to speak.

"Skye, I think I love you," he said. Then he started saying it again. "I'm sorry."

With all the willpower she had left, she made her tongue move. "S'OK," she forced out. "OK."

He nodded, though she could barely see through her rapidly defocusing eyes.

" _Skye!_ "

Was that ... Fitz? She wanted to smile but there was too much blood. Everyone was here now, with her.

More pressure on her aching torso. "Skye, can you hear me?"

A cold hand took her own. "Squeeze my hand." That was Hunter. "Damn it, Skye, squeeze my hand." She forced her limp body into action and squeezed. "There we go. Now squeeze it again." She did it again.

"Skye," Ward said, but suddenly his hands were ripped from her body and he disappeared. More hands replaced them, now pressing down with a wadded up jacket. She groaned, but blood caught in her throat and it came out as a strangled noise.

She kept squeezing. The squeezes were her lifeline.

"That's it. Good girl." Fitz again.

"Stay with me, Skye. Stay right here. You're not going anywhere. Stay right here, do you hear me?" That was Coulson. Contented, she let her eyes drift closed, but nobody seemed to like that.

A female voice she didn't recognise said something like, "Phil, I think ... lost people ... move on with their ... let her go."

There were too many voices now. She squeezed.

"I've got her."

Three words stood out in the maelstrom. Strong arms lifted her up. Was that ... Hawkeye? Her eyelids fluttered weakly. She wanted to see.

"Skye, that's Hawkeye, see? Clint Barton, the Avenger. Open your eyes and you can see him." The warm, solid mass she was pressed up against shook a little with dry laughter.

"Yeah, that's me. We're nearly there now." He started just talking to her, or maybe someone else. "I took a bullet in the chest once. Man, that's one weird scar. Nat had to drag me through all these air vents without anyone noticing, only apparently I kept making these weird grinning noises."

"You were basically snoring," the female voice said. That was the Black Widow? Oh my God, Skye wanted to say. "You were so lazy that you just let me do all the work."

"Hey," he protested, his voice a rhythmic rumble against her cheek. "Have you ever been shot in the chest?"

"Have you ever been drowned, stabbed three times at once, whipped, strangled, beaten half to death, or tortured?" Black Widow retorted.

"No, yes - four times, actually - yes, yes, yes and yes," he replied, but she could really hear any more.. "Now shut up. I'm telling Skye a story. So anyway, we got out after she ... of a window into a heli ... and then I ... into the ... and they have me ... anaesthetic, and when I woke up Nat was aslee ... her hair sticking up in all sorts of directions and ... still all over her because she _hadn't bothered to wash it off_. That's ... right?"

"Have ... ever had a Russian super ... his target right through you?"

"Shut up," he laughed, "and anyway, later ... "

She zoned out as he laid her down on a stretcher or bed or something.

Skye drew in as deep a breath she could. Was there a point to all this? - she didn't know. How could there be?

She tried to breathe out and felt the blood bubble in her chest.

"Hey, hey, hey," said Fitz from just above her. "It's OK. Stay with us, Skye."

* * *

They were losing her. May could feel it.

She banished herself to the cockpit, trying to escape the fear the self-loathing, the horror at what she'd done. She made it clear that nobody was going to come and try to speak or reason with her - or at least that anyone who tried would be met with a glare that would surely leave them close to death.

"How much longer?" Hunter called from the back. "I think we're losing her!"

"Fifteen minutes at least," she replied, keeping her eyes straight ahead.

"Shit," he said. "Shit."

She ignored him. He surely didn't expect her to answer that.

Someone sat down beside her. "Get the hell away from me," she hissed.

It was Fitz. "You should go easier on him. He's basically reliving what happened to Bobbi and you know how hard that was for him."

May stayed silent, not trusting herself to speak. She wasn't sure she could trust herself to anything any more.

"It's not your fault, you know," he told her softly. "I saw. I turned around just before you fired the shot and I saw Ward's gun and it was pointing at me. And I saw you see that and I saw you aim at him and I know that Skye stepped sideways at the last possible moment and that you couldn't possibly stop when your finger was already squeezing the trigger back. You saved my life and Skye made her choice. Maybe she didn't expect you to fire, but she stepped in front of him.

"I don't know why she did that, but she trusted him, enough to want to die for him, and he was crying when she went down. I don't know about you, but I sure as hell am not going put it down to a mistake. There was something there. I think maybe he brainwashed her, tricked her, did _something_ to make her love him again, and that's hardly your fault. It's more his than yours.

"Maybe it was my fault for not paying attention," he continued, "or Malcolm's for getting shot and needing my help, or Greenaway for not having my back. Maybe it was Coulson's for sending us in there."

"Skye! No, Skye, keep holding on, keep squeezing my hand ... "

"What I'm trying to say," Fitz persisted, "is that it's nobody's fault. Or maybe everybody's fault. But who the hell cares anyway? It's in the past now anyway. It's done, it's done, it's done. But Simmons'll get her back. She has to and she will."

"Fitz! We need you!" someone yelled.

He stood up. "Don't do that to yourself," he murmured, and left.

May stared straight ahead, stony-faced.


	14. all gone wrong (where'd forever go)

**A/N: Er, well, er, hi again. I'm so sorry it took me so long. This chapter took me forever to write.**

 **And also I wrote half of it and decided it didn't flow and then left it again and then restarted it and then almost finished it and then got distracted and then forgot about it and then my laptop broke and then I played a load of hockey and then I just started crying about everything and didn't really feel up to it.**

 **BUT NOW I'M BACK BECAUSE I JUST WAYCHED THE MIDSEASON FINALE AND WHAT THE **** WAS THAT.**

 **I'm not even kidding.**

 **Anyway, I'm about to start writing post-script author's notes because it's starting to get irritating only being able to write notes at the beginning.**

 **Review! Review review review! You're my favourite people (who I don't know) ever!**

Hunter was more white than Coulson had ever seen him, and there was still blood all over him which only made the white stand out more.

Hell, there was still blood over _all_ of them. Nobody had the heart to wash it off.

Romanoff and Barton, even, were sat there too, though he suspected this had a little to do with the suspicious-looking hole in Barton's side that he refused to let anyone near. The pair didn't look particularly surprised or even shaken by what had happened - Coulson guessed that this was fairly normal for them. What kept them there was the fact that this was as much their fault as it was anyone else's, and they knew that to leave everyone here like this was more insensitive than they had the right to be.

And the last time Coulson lost a good friend that he - and the two agents - had known and worked with for many years, Barton just slapped him on the shoulder and told him that all good things came to an end. Romanoff didn't even turn up to pay her respects.

His hands were still shaking as he looked around the small room just down the corridor from the lab.

Hunter and Bobbi in each other's arms.

Romanoff and Barton next to each other on the floor, bolt upright with their backs against the walls, her elbow pressed against a towel on his side in just a position that wouldn't look strange if you didn't know what was going on.

May, in a corner a little way away from everyone else, sat in stony silence.

A couple of Skye's hacker friends who'd managed to find out what was going on.

There was a small monitor on the wall that showed Ward in Vault D. He was sat on the bed with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

Fitz was in the lab with Simmons. Coulson wasn't entirely sure that he was helping, but he'd refused to leave.

There were raised voices. " _Damn it, get me some more clotting agent! What the hell are you doing?!_ "

At least she's still alive, Coulson reassured himself.

" _Defibrillator! I need the defibrillator!_ " Someone yelled. It wasn't Fitz or Simmons.

May stood up so fast that for a moment he thought she'd been electrocuted. Then she sat down again, slowly.

Fitz stumbled into the room, dried and fresh blood coating his hands. He turned for Coulson. "She wants you," he said heavily. "Simmons asked for you."

Coulson stood up immediately.

* * *

Forty-eight minutes.

Forty-eight bloody minutes where all Fitz could bloody do was clench his bloody (this time in the literal sense of the the word) fists and hope for the bloody best.

Finally, Simmons turned to him. "Fitz, I need you to leave," she said.

"What?"

"You're not helping and, if anything, you're just getting in the way. Please, just go and wash and rest and I swear I'll update you as soon as there's the slightest hint of progress."

The other doctors were shouting at each other. He tensed. Jemma's words stung but he knew that she was right; he was no good at this. Tears pricked at his tired, puffy eyes but he turned to leave. "Are you OK?" she asked gently.

"Are you?"

"Get Coulson in here, please," she said.

He walked into the room next door, feeling oddly light. "She wants you," he informed Coulson. He was tired, so tired. "Simmons asked for you."

When Coulson left, Fitz collapsed onto his vacant seat and shut his eyes for a moment. This was all so familiar: the wounds, the hopelessness, the waiting, tired and tense and afraid ...

He still had her blood on his hands. Her blood.

Blood on his hands.

Blood.

Blood.

Blood.

Everywhere he looked, he saw blood. Blood and more blood.

It felt like hours, the time they all spent in silence, waiting for Simmons or Coulson or another doctor to come in and tell them that it was a nasty hit, but Skye would be fine. Completely fine.

In reality, it was thirteen minutes.

Simmons walked in slowly, timidly. Everyone's attention snapped towards her. May stood up again, and so did Fitz. "Sit down, please," she said tiredly, leaning against the door frame for support. He sat down again, but May didn't move.

Jemma's eyes were red and puffy, but all the blood had been washed off.

"She was in surgery for about an hour," she began.

"Just tell us," May cut in harshly.

She bit her lip so hard that Fitz swore he could see blood appear.

"Skye - she - "

Then he knew.

"No," he said hoarsely. "Jemma, no. Tell me she's alive, tell me - "

"She's dead, Fitz," she whispered. "We couldn't save her."

May shoved her way past Simmons and out of the room. It felt like the walls were closing in on him, felt like everything was squeezing him ... He felt dizzy. All the blood was rushing to his head. He stood up slowly, unsure of his footing, but everything was slow.

"I'm sorry," she was saying. "I'm so so sorry."

Then a pair of hands was on his shoulders, forcing him back down. He sat obediently.

"Head between your knees," said Hawkeye calmly, putting a hand on his head and pushing it down. "Jeez, I thought you were a doctor."

Jemma's hand slipped into his and he closed his eyes.

* * *

Coulson was watching the monitor showing Vault D in his office.

He'd asked Simmons to break the news to Ward. She'd said yes, and savagely.

"What happened?" he asked immediately, on his feet, without even looking to see who was coming down the steps. His voice sounded tinny in the small speaker. Then he said, "Skye told me you were dead."

"We operated," she said simply, pretending not to notice his other comment. "The bullet missed anything vital but there was a chance of contact with the heart if we waited to take it out, so we did. We cut into her chest but the bullet was too close to her right lung. There were three ways she could die: the bullet could hit her heart, a scalpel could pierce her lung or she could lose too much blood for her body to function."

"But she's alive?"

Simmons ignored him. "We couldn't close the wound without taking the bullet out, so that was our only option. Because it was so close to her already weakened heart, we had to operate without anaesthetic, and she woke up."

"Please just tell me!" he burst out.

"I asked one of our technicians to scan her brain activity, which he did."

"I - "

"He found traces of _brainwashing_. You're sick. You are _actually sick_ , Grant Ward. Skye was your _friend_."

"Was?" he asked shakily.

"Damn, you're good, Ward. Damn you. She overheard - I don't know how, the state she was in. But that was the moment, I think, that she really gave up. She thought she loved you, but she didn't. You just made her think that she did. And so the technician took a blood sample, too, and he found traces of a drug that, after further analysis, was shown to have muted her powers."

Now he stopped her. Coulson watched, pained. "It wasn't like that," he said carefully.

"You lying _son of a bitch_ , Ward! You're still lying! Still! All the evidence is right here in front of you! You drugged her and brainwashed her and violated her in the worst way possible, and she was so close to bleeding to death that we had no choice but to get the bullet out and try to close the wound, only a scalpel nicked her lung just enough to puncture it, and by that time, although we tried, she was too weak to survive. _She died on the operating table, Ward._ Died because of you.

"And do you know the worst part? They all told me what happened. And I started thinking, she stepped in front of May's gun to protect you. And then I thought, _he brainwashed her_. And you brainwashed her to the point that she was just your little minion now, wasn't she? So she saved your life without even wanting to because you - you _hypnotised_ her into doing so! But does that faze you at all? You are a _twisted_ human being, Ward. _Twiste -_ "

" _Stop._ " Ward's words were harsh, cold. "You don't understand, Simmons. That's just your problem. You never look past anyone's views but your own; you never take into account anyone else's reasons!" His voice was rising.

"Oh, really?" she shouted back at him. "You're really trying to spin this back on me? Trying to make make it sound like it was my fault Skye died?! You? Of course it was, only _I_ didn't brainwash her, _I_ didn't make her think she loved me, _I_ didn't - "

"Enough!"

"What, you don't like to hear all the ways that you killed her? Because I can go on and on ... "

"You know - "

"What do I know?" she snapped. She was speaking so fast that Coulson wasn't entirely sure how he understood her. "I'll tell you something, Ward."

Ward stayed silent, his fists and jaw clenched.

"There was this poem I did for GCSE English Lit."

"What the hell is that?"

Simmons ignored him. "I didn't get a very high mark on it because I didn't understand it at the time. In fact, that was my lowest grade I got all year. But now I think I get what went wrong."

What did this have to do with anything?

"It was about betrayal. A British spy in France during the war. His friend betrayed him. He wrote this when he was freed."

"What the - "

She was reciting a poem?

This must have hurt her worse than Coulson had realised, because no one in their right mind went down into a prison and read a serial killer _poetry_.

" _On my last day of freedom, do you remember my cries,_ " she began. Coulson buried his face in his hands. " _When they came up behind me, took me by surprise,_

" _Do you remember my horror, remember my pain,_

" _Did you feel any sorrow, though it was for your own gain,_ "

This ... why was she doing this?

" _On my last day of freedom, did you get a good pay,_

" _When they all charged towards me, dragged me, screaming, away._ "

Ward was frozen with anger and confusion.

Coulson watched, horrified, as Jemma pressed a button and deactivated the wall. She strode towards him.

" _Did you get compensation, did they pay you back?_

" _Was there any money for the knife lost in my back?_ "

Move, said Coulson's brain to his body as he watched her start to hit him, a blind flurry of punches directed at his face, his neck, his chest, his stomach, as he watched her kick his feet, his ankles, his shins, his knees even.

No, said Coulson's body to his brain as he watched Ward wrap his arms around Simmons, twist her arms behind her back, take out the backs of her knees so the she was knelt on the ground and couldn't kick him -

" _On my last day of freedom, do you remember my sobs,_

" _When you brutally betrayed me and threw me to the dogs?_

" _What did it feel like, watching me go?_

" _Watching your_ friend _dragged away through the snow?_ "

Here she laughed bitterly. "In my essay I wrote that here the author was probably mentally damaged in more ways than one - he needed to frantically get his words out to the world, but he also felt a total compulsion to rhyme, and so he put in the word 'snow'. But now I realise that I was wrong. The _snow_ was figurative; he meant that the war was cold and thick and limitless and harsh - "

Ward clamped a hand over her mouth. "Stop it," he said through gritted teeth. "I don't want to hurt you, Simmons."

She bit his hand and laughed. "Sure," she spat.

 _Move move move move move_ thought Coulson. Jerkily he stood up, vision still fixed on the screen.

Ward collapsed on the ground, apparently unconscious. Simmons, still in his grasp, fell with him, but detangled herself relatively quickly and stood up, dusting herself off.

 _What_?

Mack came into the view of the camera, holding an ICER. "Are you all right?" he asked breathlessly.

She stormed past him, furious. "Fine."

"Simmons!" Mack called after her, starting in the same direction and then turning to look back in confusion at the slumped body on the floor. Violently he kicked at it, re-activated the wall and left.

Coulson sat down again.

 **A/N(2): Hi again? Are you excited? I'm excited!**

 **Here are some important things you probably didn't pick up on:**

 **Why didn't we have a death scene? I mean, I know that I don't know anything about medicine, but no death scene? That's kind of bad writing if you ask me.**

 **Also, Simmons and Coulson being the only ones to witness the death seemed a bit suspicious...**

 **And why did Simmons volunteer to tell Ward even though she's terrified of him? And didn't the whole poetry thing seem a bit staged? (That was meant to sound kind of awkward, just for the record.)**

 **But what if I'm just messing with your heads, guys? Did I kill her? Did I keep her alive? What is really going on in my twisted mind?**

 **And what if I never update again? That would be sad, right? You'd best leave a review to inspire me to write more...**

 ***smiles evilly***

 **Thanks!**


	15. it's cold (nothing seems right any more)

**A/N: Hi again, everyone. Guess what? This is the last chapter! It's pretty short, but I'm fairly sure that the epilogue will be popping up soon, and that will probably end up being very long (and very confusing and explain everything in such a confusing way that no one will understand it anyway. I'm trying not to let that happen).**

 **Your reviews mean the world to me, and I can't believe that I've managed to get over 150 followers! Also, to the 150th follower, I'm sorry I couldn't give you a shoutout by name - I got a big block of followers overnight (I love you guys) and wasn't sure which one was which. So here's a shoutout to follower 150 anyway. Thank you.**

 **Also, don't freak out or anything if I don't get the epilogue up for two months or something. I won't abandon this story...**

 **Review! You know you want to, and if you don't want to then do it anyway! :)**

 _Three weeks later_

"You know, I _did_ get shot in the chest once," Romanoff commented breezily, giving her partner a friendly shove and they stepped up onto the cargo ramp.

"Oh yeah?" Barton challenged. "When?"

"Lisbon, 2011. It was that freakishly hot summer, remember? We were doing that major drugs bust with the police there."

"What, the one where you didn't understand any Portugese so when someone shouted _get down_ you didn't pay any attention?" He scoffed. "That hardly counts. You were wearing a bulletproof vest."

"I still got internal bleeding! Besides, you don't speak Portugese either, so it could have happened to you. _Easily._ And I bet you've never had internal bleeding. You got pretty freaked out when a week later I started coughing up blood and then collapsed into your arms."

Bobbi could hear Barton complaining loudly, but she couldn't move without her new crutches causing a racket. "It was April Fool's Day! I thought you were playing a trick on me so I laughed!"

"It was either hysterical laughing or hysterical crying. I wasn't sure, but I was too busy _having internal bleeding_ to care."

"I'm sorry, OK!" he laughed.

They were silent for a few seconds. Bobbi turned around the corner and made her way towards them.

"Morse, hey," Romanoff said.

"You realise it's kind of disrespectful to talk about that here, right?" she said. "The grave's only up there."

She pointed to the ceiling. Though Coulson and Simmons hadn't let them hold a funeral (apparently Skye had asked them not to) they'd buried her above the underground part of the base. The earth was still fresh, and most of the team still visited every day.

"Right," said Romanoff. She didn't apologise.

Bobbi moved away, but as she left she caught a drift of, "And I did get internal bleeding once, remember?"

She ignored whatever the assassins said next.

* * *

Since Skye's death, the whole world had been cold.

It was strange, Fitz thought, that one person could change so many people's lives without any of them even knowing. Skye was a sister, a best friend, and daughter, a kind of distant cousin who it was nice to catch up with occasionally ...

If the grief of losing John Malcolm, a kind of techie who tended to work in the lab but was always available for backup if need be, had hit him like a truck, then the grief of losing Skye hit Fitz like a freight train. Because what kind of world did they live in? Their friend had turned out to be the most evil person inside Hydra and betrayed them. The entire organisation they worked for, an organisation that swore to fight for its planet, had in fact turned out to be evil and then even the good part was labelled as evil anyway because it hadn't noticed that it was evil.

Or something like that.

Until he joined SHIELD, Fitz's life story had been short and uninteresting, and much as Simmons had tried to persuade him otherwise, _he'd liked it that way._

But now ... What was this life? Was it even a life? He hadn't spoken to his mother, or any family member or old friend, for months. And now he was just afraid. Afraid that he'd get them killed too.

"Fitz, I think we need to talk."

He looked up automatically, and then swore under his breath when he realised that it was Simmons. He hadn't meant to, but they both knew that he was pushing her away. She was spending so much time in Coulson's office anyway, and he'd stopped talking to her almost completely - what was there to talk about, now? What did they have in common any more?

"We do?"

"I can't leave it like this, Fitz. I don't know what I've done, but I think the decent thing to do would be to tell me what the hell I've done to deserve the treatment you're giving me. Why do you suddenly hate me so much? Have I done something to offend you?"

He was hit by a wave of guilt. It looked like there were tears in her eyes. "No, Jemma."

"Then what is it? Because I know this sounds awful, but I feel like - I don't know. " she whispered.

"Like what?" He was curious.

"Like you blame me for Skye's death!" she burst out. "I feel like you think it was my fault I couldn't save her, and that Ward br ... "

Fitz looked at her, frowning. "Ward did what?"

"It doesn't matter," she said quickly. Too quickly. "It's - it doesn't matter."

"What doesn't matter, Jemma? Tell me."

"I ... can't," she said lamely.

"If it doesn't matter, then why can't you tell me?"

"Please just trust me on this one, Fitz." She spun around and left abruptly. Fitz stared after her, but he couldn't bring himself to call her name.

Everything she'd said was true, and that scared him.

 **A/N: Well, that was short and bitter and completely rushed. I do apologise.**

 **But there's definitely something weird going on, right? Why haven't they told anyone about the brainwashing? Why wasn't there a funeral? In the last chapter, Simmons mentioned that Skye gave up, and didn't talk, so how could she have asked them not to?**

 **Hmmm...**

 **Well, on that cheerful note, I'll go, because my notes are threatening to become longer than the actual chapters...**

 **Thanks!**


	16. follow me (i'll show you the way)

**A/N: We did it! We made it, lovely readers. We have finally finished this story and - get this - in _less than a year_. You heard me. Less. Are you happy? I'm happy. **

**I'm sorry I didn't get this up sooner; I've had a cough for a couple of weeks which turned into what we think was a sort of bug... I just got a lot of headaches - whenever I read or looked at a screen. Not fun.**

 **Anyway, more to the point, this is going to be confusing. For future reference, _present day_ means where we were at the end of the last chapter. Three weeks ago is when Skye died.**

 **See you at the end of the chapter!**

 _Three weeks ago_

"Skye? Skye, look at me. Can you look at me? Good girl. Oh, my God, she's awake. She's waking up. I need more morphine. Or any anaesthetic. Someone get me something!"

There was a mad scuffle as a lesser agent tried to find something. Since Skye was already unconscious, they hadn't wanted to affect her already slowing heart rate any further, and in her state they doubted that she was feeling much at all anyway.

"C- " said Skye.

"Don't try to talk, Skye. It's fine. It's going to be fine," Simmons soothed. She'd already asked Coulson to come in. He was right there, holding her hand. She thought he'd want to be there if things ... went south.

"She's been brainwashed," confirmed Agent Morton, coming over.

Simmons shot him a panicky look, gesturing towards the patient on the table in front of them. Morton's eyes widened and he swore under his breath. "Did she hear?" he mouthed.

From the looks of Skye's stricken face, she had. Her mouth opened but all that came out was blood. "Shit!" someone yelled. "The scalpel punctured a lung. Shit!"

"Csy," Skye choked out. Coulson leaned closer.

"What's she trying to say?"

"Ct-sy," Skye said. Her eyes began to flutter closed.

"Oh my God, courtesy? You want to perform Operation Courtesy?"

Skye groaned and shut her eyes.

"Morphine," Simmons said, grabbing it from a pair of shaking hands.

"She wants to - "

"Coulson, there is someone inside her chest trying to stitch up her lungs. There is a bullet in there with that, she's bleeding internally, and she can't breathe. With all due respects, back off. Now."

* * *

 _Present day_

Bobbi walked slowly, carefully. It hurt like hell, but she was walking. Screw the doctors. She was doing well. Walking without crutches was a massive step up.

She stumbled the last few steps and feel into Hunter's arms. He lifted her up and sat her back in her wheelchair. "Hey," she said. "I use crutches now, remember?"

"Not after that, you don't," he said, somewhat grimly. "That was bloody amazing, Bob, but now you need a rest. OK? Bobbi?"

She was blinking mist out of her vision. Her knee was hurting pretty badly now. Fighting back a groan, she nodded and smiled at Hunter. "Fine," she said.

"You just stared into space for about ten seconds. You weren't ready for that, were you? Did Simmons even - "

"No," she cut in, "she didn't."

Hunter swore. "For goodness' sake, Bobbi, you have to be careful here! This injury is bloody _serious_ and you know it. How can you have thought that putting your entire body's weight on it was going to help it? One wrong move here and you're screwed for life, OK?"

"I just," she said. "I just feel like I'm being pathetic. Compared to Skye."

He stared.

"I know what you're going to say," she continued quickly. "But Skye got _killed_. She was shot in the chest, just like me, and here I am taking one step at a time, and look at her. She's _dead_ , Hunter. She's dead and I keep thinking - "

She stopped, choking. Tears were welling up in her eyes. "I keep thinking that maybe it's - it's my fault."

Hunter crouched down beside her. "Bobbi, that's ridiculous."

"Maybe if I hadn't been so _stupid_ as to get caught in the first place, maybe if I could have held on long enough for you to come and get me ... maybe I wouldn't have been shot. Maybe Kara wouldn't be dead and Ward wouldn't be out looking for Skye, and maybe if I could have _been_ there, with you all, maybe that one extra man would have been enough to - to - _save_ her, or s - something." She was crying. Why was she crying? "And why did it have to be her to die? I mean, it could have been me, and then - "

"Bobbi, I - "

"You don't _understand_ , Hunter! You don't understand what it's _like_ , to be the _survivor_! I can't even stand up and honour her memory!"

"Bobbi, it's not your fault. None of this is your fault, OK? You listen to me. Skye wouldn't want this. Skye died for all of us - "

"How did she die for all of us? She got shot because May's bullet _missed_."

Hunter cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. "She was trying to step in front of Ward so that he wouldn't shoot anything else. She just picked the wrong moment."

"Hunter - "

"Shh," he murmured.

She pointed to the screen on the wall. "Hunter, Ward's not in his cell."

* * *

 _Three weeks ago_

"She's stable."

Jemma stumbled back into Coulson and, not having the heart to move, collapsed against his chest. He only just caught her in time. Never had two words brought so much relief.

"Now out," he said, surprising her. "All of you, out."

Frowning and muttering, the doctors and surgeons left. "Why?" she asked, turning around.

"Operation Courtesy," he said. "We were discussing it before Ward took her."

"What is it?"

"It's an old protocol, hardly ever used. She was reading about it. Basically, when an agent goes through an ordeal, SHIELD's rules state that Courtesy may be initiated. The agent, if they have the chance to give permission, may be saved on the operating table but the doctors operating on them tell the entire world that they are dead. The survived agent is then free to go and live a full life outside of SHIELD, with a new name and identity."

"That's horrible!" Simmons exclaimed. "Why would you want to do that to her?"

"She wants it herself. She was _brainwashed_. She needs time."

"Coulson, there was blood in her mouth. She could have been saying anything."

"I'm doing this, Simmons. And as director of SHIELD, I'm ordering you to go out there and tell them that she's dead."

"You're delusional! That _idea_ is delusional! I don't know why - "

"That is an _order_."

"No!"

"Simmons," he said harshly. "It's what she wants. Respect her wishes."

* * *

 _Four months from now_

"It's time to admit that we need help," Coulson said. "We are no closer to finding Ward, we have an alien planet, Hydra's doing something weird and we ... need something extra. Something to help us."

"So," Hunter prompted.

"Simmons?"

"We ... we weren't exactly honest with you," she said quietly.

"When?" May asked.

"On the day that Skye was shot," Coulson said.

"What was there to lie about?" Fitz asked them angrily. "What's going on now?"

"Skye ... " said Bobbi. "When Ward escaped, I started searching through the data logs. Searching for which lanyards opened which doors, et cetera. Skye's ID card was used."

"That's impossible," Hunter cut in angrily. "We buried it with her."

"But that's the thing," Simmons said. "We didn't bury her."

* * *

 _Present day_

"Are you ready? Do you have everything?"

"You sound like you're my mother," Skye grinned. "Yes, I have my toothbrush."

Simmons handed her a passport.

Bobbi and Coulson stood at the side. Bobbi was back in her crutches. It was a few days after she'd found Skye's ID card in the system - she'd gone straight to Coulson, who was with Simmons, who accidentally came clean anyway.

"Well, good luck, I guess," Bobbi said.

"We'll call," Simmons promised. "And I want to meet up with you when you're settled in to your new apartment."

"Maybe that's not a good - " Coulson tried, but Simmons tutted loudly, interrupting him.

"Sure," said Skye.

"Look after yourself, OK?" Bobbi smiled.

Skye nodded. "Yeah."

"Well, here goes," said Simmons, taking a deep, slightly tearful breath. "See you soon, Skye."

Skye gave her a watery smile. "It's Daisy, now."

* * *

 _Four days ago_

It hadn't been Skye's fault that she'd helped Ward escape. Simmons hadn't cleared her medically to sort out the brainwashing yet and, slightly disorientated thanks to all her pain mess, Skye had wondered down to the camera management room, put the camera for Vault D on a loop, and somehow managed to get him out of the base without anyone noticing.

Coulson couldn't get any more information out of her because she was still confined to her bed for three days and every time he brought it up she pretended to go to sleep.

They were lucky that it was only Bobbi who found out.

* * *

 _Four months from now_

"What the hell," said May, ominously.

"What the hell," Hunter agreed.

"Look," said Coulson. "We never told you the whole story."

"You're right, you didn't," Fitz burst out. Simmons rubbed his arm soothingly, but he shoved her away. "Get off me."

"Ward brainwashed her. That's why she stepped in front of him and took the bullet." May and Hunter looked at each other. "He also had her drugged. We don't know exactly what happened, but we know that it was bad enough for her to want to give up on everything when she found out. She woke up on the table, and told us what she wanted."

"Which was ... ?"

"To start over. To leave SHIELD, to have a real life. Maybe not forever, but for long enough that she could find herself again."

"And did she?" Hunter didn't appear to be able to stop himself.

"Yes."

They all turned around to see whose voice it was.

She was standing in the doorway.

"Skye?" Fitz breathed.

She gave a smile so wide it threatened to split her face in half. Then she said, correcting him, "Daisy."

 _Fin._

 **A/N: It's done! Finished! Finally!**

 **Major thank yous are owed to all of the people who have supported this fic by reviewing, in particular those who have left more than one or two - thank you to Brenda, Foxy redhead, bhut and annavale23, who have left the most. Also, thank you to all the guests, several of whom I'm pretty sure reviewed every chapter, or near enough.**

 **If you've followed or favourited this story, you have my eternal gratitude.**

 **This basically leaves off exactly where Season 3 starts, minus the fact that Simmons is there. Other than that, it was basically a between-seasons fic.**

 **Thank you all again for your constant support,**

 **LadyMorganaPendragon**


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